Mikkeli airport

Mikkeli airport
Characteristics
ICAO code	EFMI
IATA code	MIK
Coordinates	61 ° 41 ′ 11 ″ N , 27 ° 12 ′ 0 ″ E Coordinates: 61 ° 41 ′ 11 ″ N , 27 ° 12 ′ 0 ″ E
Height above MSL	100 m (328 ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center	3 km west of Mikkeli
Basic data
opening	1936
operator	City of Mikkeli
Start-and runway
11/29	1702 m × 44 m asphalt

The Mikkeli Airport is the airport of the Finnish town of Mikkeli .

history

The airport is located immediately west of the city center on a drained marshland. It was put into operation in 1936 and half financed by the Finnish state and half by the city of Mikkeli. To this day, the airport is one of the few in Finland that is not owned by the state operating company Finavia ; it is wholly owned by the city administration.

The airport, which was originally planned for scheduled air traffic, was initially hardly used until it was converted into a base for the Finnish Air Force in the Second World War . At the height of the Continuation War , up to 44 bombers and fighters of the Finnish Air Force were stationed here.

A scheduled flight to Helsinki was first set up in 1951 by the Mikkeli-based airline Mikkelin Lentolinjat Oy , but this stopped operating again towards the end of the 1950s due to the low passenger volume . In the 1960s, the airport was mostly only used by amateur pilots. Since the Lääni Mikkeli was the only Finnish Lääni without its own airport at that time, the city and provincial administration tried to lure scheduled flights to Mikkeli again due to the reputation associated with an airport. In 1973, Finnair added Mikkeli to its flight plan as a stopover on the Convair Metropolitans route to Savonlinna , and from 1980 she flew to Mikkeli with Fokker F-27 Friendships .

In the expectation that the number of passengers would triple in the near future, the airport underwent significant expansion in the winter of 1986/87, but instead the number of passengers collapsed with the severe Finnish economic crisis of the early 1990s. In 2000 Finnair completely stopped the unprofitable scheduled flights to Mikkeli.

The airport was last served by the Swedish airline European Executive Express from Helsinki until October 2005. Today it is only used by amateur and glider pilots, especially in the summer months.

Web links

Commons : Mikkeli Airport - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Website of the Mikkeli Airport (english)
Airport data on World Aero Data ( 2006 )